It’s hard to find a good job these days, but it’s just going to keep getting harder. That’s because every year it seems like more and more jobs become obsolete, thanks largely to technology. And hey, I’m not here to bag on technology (love you, Internet!) I’m just telling you that unless your career plans involve servicing robots and drones like some lowly human butler then you might be in some trouble. Especially, if your job is one of these eight jobs, all of which will likely disappear at some point in the very near future.
Newspaper Reporter
Look, journalism isn’t going to die. Let’s not get hysterical here. But the nature of journalism is going to change. Hell, it already has changed. The most important stories are already broken online. The major news providers have already made the move to an online model, and seem to just be waiting for all the old people to die off so they can finally abandon the Titanic that is print. There will always be newspapers, but that’s just because the gravity of the past will always keep a few people hanging around, but the inertia of the future will pull even more people away, and what you’ll be left with is a skeleton crew of sad print dinosaurs while all the action happens electronically. That’s right, world, it’s all lists and dick jokes from here on out. I’m the new Woodward and Bernstein. Yes, both of them. Clearly, we’re in deep trouble.
Photo Lab Technician
This has pretty much already happened. That’s because film is essentially dead. At least as an everyday medium. We’re all digital, baby, and no one is willing to wait around to get film developed when our phones can just instantly give us the goods. Before you get hysterical, fetishists, I understand that there will always be film devotees, and professional photographers and hobbyists will always need to develop pictures. But those are the types of people with their own dark-rooms. They’ll just develop that shit themselves instead of relying on some stranger to make their pictures appear as if by magic. It’s 2015, you don’t need Gandalf to develop your dick pics.
Telephone Operator
This is some straight up 1950s shit right here and yet, these people still exist. I think, anyway. I can’t say I know for sure because, come on, when is the last time you or anyone you know used a real, live human operator to make a phone call? Shit, when was the last time you even used a phone other than your cell? I assume there is still some senile old lady sitting in some dark, dusty room waiting to take calls that never come, her arthritic hand hovered over the switchboard for eternity, the skeleton of her dead cat at her side. It’s like a goddamn horror movie. Once they finally wheel her corpse out of there, the operator game is over forever.
Travel Agent
If you’re young enough, you probably don’t even know what in the hell this is. That’s because the Internet – and its various Choose Your Own Adventure travel booking sites – has made the travel agent yet another dusty relic of the past. I’m sure there are still some technophobes who use real, live human agents to book their vacations, and there will always probably be people who think that the human touch adds some class to their affairs, but not enough. I mean, it already seems kind of weird, doesn’t it? You can just do that shit yourself now in five minutes while you’re in your underwear. Why would you actually pay someone to do it for you? Besides, if TV has taught me anything, it’s that your travel agent is probably just a Russian spy anyway.
Musicians
There will always be musicians. Don’t lose your shit, okay? You can’t kill artistry. But what you can kill is real, live paying gigs for musicians. That’s because technology has evolved – and will continue to evolve – to the point that computers can just do that shit, and cheaper. The “studio musician” is already largely a thing of the past, as various robots have conspired to create the music for every pop star alive, and that just leaves wedding singers and bar bands. Oh, and symphonies, but nobody cares about that shit. And hey, look, if you want to argue that musicians will always have jobs because of sad wedding singers and “will play for beer” bar bands, then go right ahead. I won’t stop you. You’re embarrassing yourself, but I won’t stop you.
Comedians
Comedians will continue to exist in name, but the cultural McCarthyists will drag enough of them out of the clubs and hang them on Twitter for the whole world to see so that the nature of the game will be forced to change, and what we’ll be left with instead will be a group of semi-funny lecturers and “witty” rally leaders. Sure, people just want to get drunk, laugh and have a good time, but don’t tell that to the critics. Comedy is serious business, and in the future, only those who understand and appreciate their cultural and social responsibilities vis-à-vis the crafting of “jokes” will make it. We’ve seen the future and it is Weird Twitter. God help us all.
Soldiers
Scoff all you want, but you can’t deny we’re already heading towards some Terminator shit. We’ve got drones flying everywhere, and it’s only a matter of time before some genius decides that instead of people killing people face to face, whites of their eyes to whites of their eyes, we can just get robots to kill each other. Which is great – hey, everybody lives! But you know it’s just a matter of time before the machines decide “hey, wait a minute…” and then we’re all living in sewer tunnels, eating rats and hiding from robots that look suspiciously like jacked-up Austrian bodybuilders.
Besides, war should be messy and fraught with human costs. Otherwise, people would be going to war over the stupidest shit. It’s easy to throw down with your neighbor over the rose bushes when it’s basically Robot Jox. It’s a hell of a lot harder when your kids are killing each other.
Still, we’re doing this shit. Mostly because we’re dumb and historically illiterate. Don’t tell me The Terminator was fake. Never forget.
Jizz Moppers
Yes, we come to the most important and tragic lost job of them all: the noble jizz mopper. Thanks to the Internet, no one needs to leave the house to jack off anymore. We’re not savages, forced to huddle in jerk-booths like our filthy ancestors, leering at whatever the fuck lies behind a curtain, pawing at ourselves while a dude with a mop and dead eyes that have seen too much waits patiently for us to finish up so he can swab the decks for the next dude to come through and, uh, swab his own deck. No, every man today is his own jizz mopper, which is great because it’s something we can all put on our resumes and because it’s good to have skilled workers these days, but good luck getting anyone to pay you for it. I love technology, but always remember there is a cost, and with the loss of the jizz mopper, that cost is our very culture itself, and the humanity that lies at its heart.
Photo lab image by ValeStock/Shutterstock